Innocent III, original name Lotario de' Conti di Segni 1160-1216
Italian pope

Born at Agnagni, he studied theology in Paris and canon law in Bologna under the great canonist Huguccio of Pisa. He succeeded Pope Celestine III, and his pontificate (from 1198) is regarded as the culminating point of the temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Roman see. He judged between rival emperors in Germany and had Otto IV deposed. He put England under an interdict and excommunicated King John for refusing to recognize Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. John's submission made England and Ireland satellites of the Holy See. In his time the Latin conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in the Fourth Crusade destroyed the pretensions of his Eastern rivals. He zealously repressed simony (the buying and selling of ecclesiastical benefices) and other abuses of the time. He promoted the spiritual movement in which the Franciscan and Dominican orders had their origin. Under him the famous fourth Lateran Council was held in 1215. His works embrace sermons, a remarkable treatise on the Misery of the Condition of Man, a large number of letters, and perhaps the 'golden sequence' 'Veni, sancte Spiritus'.

Bibliography: L Elliot-Binns, Innocent III (1931)